It began with the overseas colonies and trading posts set up by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history, and the world's most powerful superpower for more than a century.[1] By 1922, more than 458 million people lived in the British Empire, which was more than one fifth of the world's population at that time.[2] The empire was larger than 33,700,000 km2 (13,012,000 sq mi), almost a quarter of the Earth's total land area.[1]p15 Since it was so large, the British Empire has left a large legal, linguistic and cultural legacy. Like the Spanish Empire before it, the British Empire was often said to be "the empire on which the sun never sets" because it was so large that the sun was always shining somewhere in the empire.